I am getting pretty excited about the audiobook of Provoked! It’s going through quality assurance at ACX right now so will be out very soon…

The narrator, Hamish McKinlay, is a native Scot with a fantastic range of Scottish accents (yes, there is more than one, lol!). This was a huge – and very difficult to achieve – priority for me given that nearly every character in Provoked is Scottish. I love the voices Hamish has used for both well-educated, lower class David and aristocratic, anglicised Murdo. Murdo’s accent in particular was a difficult one – maybe non-Scots won’t even realise how authentic it is, but regardless, it will remain a source of joy to me

The other thing I’ve realised – or rather, that’s been brought home to me once again – is how, um… earthy my sex scenes are. I’ve been biting my lip and squeezing my eyes shut through listening to these scenes. It feels very exposing, having your own salty words performed with such relish. Oh, those rolled-Rs!

Anyway, I’m hoping audio readers love this and will be doing a giveaway in my newsletter as soon as it’s up.

I’m so excited for it (and the whole series) now. Even though I personally wouldn’t have an ear for the Scottish accents, it so important to get all accents right, for the readers who will know. Your words definitely deserved all the care and attention they could get, and I’m thrilled I’ll be able to reread them again soon through Hamish’s narration.

I cannot wait to get it and excited to hear all the different characters as accents differ all over Scotland. I don’t always understand everything people say in different parts of Scotland and i was born and brought up in Central Scotland.

Forgive me for not knowing more about you (and I have searched) but are you a Scot? Because you’ve absolutely bloody nailed it with your terrific story and now the audio version too. It’s terrific (and I’m an audio book lover and cringe at a bad performance). Your voice actor is just perfect and I’m amazed at how he uses his voice to capture the many different nuances/accents/ages etc. It’s difficult to believe this is a one man show so professional is his performance. I do hope you’ll have the rest in the series recorded. This is a five* story and a 5* performance and I shall say so when I review. Fantastic! And BTW, I am Scottish.

Hi Wendy – thank you for the kind words! And yes, I’m a Scot 🙂 In truth, one of the reasons I wrote Provoked (and the other two in the series) was in reaction to all those ubiquitous “highlander romances” which are so divorced from real Scots as to be unrecognisable. Provoked touches on this theme, but it’s the second book in the series (Beguiled) that’s most concerned with that. And yes, I struck lucky with this narrator. I searched long and hard for him! I knew I wouldn’t be able to bear anything less than someone 100% authentic 🙂

And of course you’re a Scot, ! I should have checked more carefully. But it’s very obvious by your language and colloquialisms. Only a Scot could write about Scotland and its folk in the way you do – wonderful stuff 😊

Thank you so much, Karen! Hopefully I’ll get the next one out in the next couple of months, but I’m not sure how schedules will line up. I’ll update the website/ my author page on facebook as soon as I know more 🙂